Edmond Richer and the revival of Gallicanism, 1600 - 1630

The accompanying thesis is an investigation, the first in English, of the significance of the revival of Gallicanism at the beginning of the seventeenth century in France and the part which Edmond Richer played in that revival. The investigation is introduced by a brief survey of the eccleaiastical and political theories current in France by 1594, and a short account of the rise of Richer to prominence in the Faculty of Theology at Paris. This is followed by an examination of the revival of episcopalism which Richer fostered in the Faculty and which culminated in his "Libellus", and of its rejection by the church. The revival of regalism is then studied in its relation to the Parlementaires and Richer and as expressed at the States General of 1614, and finally the whole movement is related to the emergence of the secular absolutism of France in the seventeenth century, and Gallicanism is examined as an aspect of the fundamental problem of church and state.